High resolution imaging on photoreceptive materials coated on to various substrates is used in manufacturing processes such as manufacture of semiconductor devices, printed circuit boards and offset printing. In such manufacturing processes, the photoreceptive material may be exposed in a manner such as to create a desired image that, when additional steps are taken, produces a usable differentiation in the photoreceptive material in the exposed areas and unexposed areas. This difference may then be used to advance the manufacturing process.
As one example, in offset printing, metal plates used may have a surface which has been differentiated between areas that are hydrophobic and areas that are hydrophilic. The plates may then exposed to water. The hydrophobic areas repel water, hydrophilic areas do not. When the plate comes in contact with ink, the ink is taken up by the areas where there is no water. This pattern of ink may then be transferred indirectly to paper, thus generating a printed page.
Methods of creating images on these substrates have evolved over the decades from projecting illuminated images through a lens onto a substrate to the use of lasers and complex expensive mechanism to scan the surface of the substrate. Common to all known imaging methods is that the speed is constrained if the solution is to be practical in terms of cost.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for imaging that is high speed and cost effective.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods and apparatus to change or adapt the light source to the spectral sensitivity of the substrate.
Furthermore, embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods and apparatus for transporting an imaging mechanism over the substrate in such a fashion as to provide the required precision, accuracy, and resolution for high speed resolution imaging.
Embodiments of this disclosure additionally provide methods and apparatus of controlling the intensity of the light emitting diodes through the using of voltage and current characteristics.
Embodiments of this disclosure also provide for the methods and apparatus to control each individual light in the monolithic light emitting diode array at a speed consistent with the overall imaging requirements.